For students on the European Joint Master’s in Digital and Sustainable Manufacturing Engineering, a week in Austria brought a question from industry into their studies.
How can Infineon Technologies make sure its cleanrooms have the spare parts they need, when they need them?
Through EU4DUAL’s collaboration with FH JOANNEUM and Infineon, students worked on this challenge throughout the week and visited the company’s semiconductor manufacturing site in Villach. The combination gave them something a classroom case alone could only describe. They could follow the movement of materials through the site, meet the people responsible for different stages of production and relate what they saw to the problem they were studying.
Michael Binder’s presentation on material handling helped put the spare parts challenge in context. A tour of the manufacturing site with Paul Stichaller and a visit to shipping and logistics with Alexander Paintner then gave students a view of the wider operation, from the production floor to the point where finished products leave for customers.
This is what EU4DUAL’s dual approach offers students. A company brings a question from its own operations into the curriculum, and students have the opportunity to explore it both at university and on site. In Villach, that meant looking at a supply chain through the eyes of the people who depend on it and bringing that perspective back to their work on the case.
Photos © Infineon Technologies.